We condemn Richard Littlejohn's offensive column on 14 December in the Daily Mail in which he ridicules the assault inflicted on Jody McIntyre by police officers at the student protests in London ('Why is it so surprising?', G2, 16 December). In it he compared Mr McIntyre, who was born with cerebral palsy, to Andy, a character who is an object of ridicule in Little Britain. By doing that, he implied that, like Andy, Mr McIntyre is faking his disability and is not mentally sound. This is outrageous.

And to add insult to injury he argued that disabled people who get harmed at protests deserve it because they should not be there in the first place. It is the right of all human beings to exercise freedom of association and expression.

Finally, Mr Littlejohn justified police brutality against Mr McIntyre, adding to the appalling culture where police who perpetrate violence act with impunity, as we saw most recently in the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson. We call on the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, to dismiss Mr Littlejohn, withdraw the article from the publication's website and publish an adequate apology to Mr McIntyre and all disabled people.

Clare Solomon ULU president

Rupy Kapur NUS Disabled students officer

Kanja Sesay Black students officer

Sean Rillo Raczka Chair, Birkbeck students' union

Aaron Porter NUS President

Richard Reiser Director, World of Inclusion

George Galloway Respect

Jeremy Corbyn MP Labour, Islington North

John McDonnell MP Labour, Hayes and Harlington

Deborah Coles Director, Inquest

Helen Shaw Co-director, Inquest

Mark Serwotka General secretary, PCS

Alan Dennis PCS NEC

Professor Peter Hallward Kingston University

Andrew Fisher Joint secretary, Labour Representation Committee

Sarah Evans Hampshire Labour Representation Committee

Bobby Noyes President, Southampton and South West Hampshire trades union council

Peter Millward President, Andover trades union council

Matt Tipper Regional industrial organiser, Unite

Councillor Mike Roberts Rushmoor council

Ben Symak Chair, De Montford University Labour club

John Rees Stop the War Coalition

Jack Bruce Musician (Cream)

Aruba Red Musician

• I recently heard the home secretary discussing the merits of the police perhaps now using water cannon, rubber bullets and other weapons to confront the next London protests (May moves to rule out use of water cannon, 14 December). Have I somehow travelled back in time over 20 years to when the then home secretary was debating exactly the same thing after previous serious rioting?

In the 1980s I was a senior officer at Scotland Yard and part of a team tasked with looking at these and other devices. Having secretly borrowed from Germany a couple of water cannon to test, we soon found they were vulnerable and pointless on the narrow streets of London. Rubber bullets, on the other hand, can fill the gap between truncheons and firearms as a non-lethal response.

We also looked at a wonderful device that could rapidly fill Whitehall with disorientating foam, as well as a "subsonic warbler" that caused anyone within range to withdraw quickly, clutching their trousers, as the frequency relaxed most human sphincter muscles. Regrettably, we could not trust constables to avoid aiming at politicians with the latter, so it was abandoned, but the former, being impervious to hot air, might just work.